I've been using H&R block online for several years now. Supposedly they provide audit assistance for free. I was thinking of switching to TaxACT this year, but providing H&R block actually helps me with this paperwork, I'll gladly continue to file with them.

When I was right out of high school someone told me you could put anything you want on a 1040 EZ as long as you only took the standard deduction. He claimed to know people who lied about the numbers to get a bigger "refund." According to him, the IRS didn't verify anything on the 1040 EZ and just printed off checks.

Of course, that was nearly 20 years ago. I'd never try that, but it is nice to know that should I take that nice $24k standard deduction next year, my odds of getting audited are next to nothing.

We went to our accountant today to get our taxes done. Complicated buy the sale of some real estate (a family farm, lots of fun trying to put numbers on property that had been in the family for over 65 years). Anyway, the accountant said that he has been doing taxes for 48 years and in the last eight years , has only been audited 3 times. He said chance of an audit is way down because the IRS employees have declined from 130 some thousand to 90 some thousand. Guess you drew the short straw!

I think your accountant is right. I needed some documentation from my company regarding my vehicle reimbursement. The company I work for has over 300 employees and has been in business for about 50 years.

It took me two weeks of going back and forth with HR to get the documentation I needed for the IRS. Shoot, even what they sent me doesn't match what the IRS is looking for word for word. My point is, my company acted like it is the first time one of their employees has needed documentation for a tax audit. Very strange.

I drove 44k miles for my employer and another 6k miles for Uber that year. I'm sure that 50k mileage deduction set off a red flag. My employer does not pay the full IRS mileage amount, so I wrote off what they didn't pay.

Whats interesting is my coworker does the same amount of driving, has been with the company 25 years, and has never been audited by the IRS.